


Leave Them at the Bottom of the Grave They Dug for You

by heylittleriotact



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: 5e, Great Old One, Homebrew, Musing, Pact of The Chain, Resurrection, Self-Discovery, Self-Doubt, Self-Reflection, The Chained God, Warlocks, death mention, tharizdun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 18:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylittleriotact/pseuds/heylittleriotact
Summary: A journey of self reflection and discovery that follows the Cutwife of The Lakesdrip Forest; The Hag of The Hut; Kelynn.Half elven in a land still healing from a recent war between men and elves, this outwardly simple hermit travels with a group of companions in search of answers, freedom, and retribution for a destiny which she had no say in.I've decided to write these between sessions because they help me keep a grip on who Kelynn is, and what she's feeling as the adventures she participates in unfold around her.





	Leave Them at the Bottom of the Grave They Dug for You

Not a day goes by where I don’t wonder who I am.

In fact, as the days pass, it seems to take up more and more of my mind. Is it the people I surround myself with who quicken the growth of this seed of self-knowing? Maybe. They all have a place in this world: Nerisnys has a rich history of familial bonds and responsibilities; Maella has her duty to her people, and even Scales - as aimless as he seems - appears to take some sort of ownership of his path in this life, as brigandly as it is. Only Malforious seems as enigmatic in his direction as myself, and yet he still seems outwardly content with drinking, whoring, and setting things on fire as often as possible. Is that because he’s simple? I find it unlikely. The man is a mess and a mystery, but there’s little doubt in my mind that he’s just as directionless as me.

Do I do as he does? Do I chalk my life up to this point - my years under the tutelage of the hag; my childhood in the forest; the lives I’ve saved by taking new ones - do I write it all off as ‘something’ that happened to me? A mild inconvenience in a deliberately self-serving scheme? Would it really be so difficult to sweep it all over the threshold and immerse myself in a world of denial and obliviousness?

I do not want to be this. I never wanted to be this. Would that I could make merry and light of everything, caring little for the consequences of my actions and how they may affect those whose paths I’ve crossed.

But honestly, does Malforious carry with him a cursed book that calls to him in the night and torments him with only blank pages and the occasional image of someone he knows dying a horrible death? Does he sleep at night to dream of green and laughter and sickness?

And the fucking Imp. Don’t get me started on the gods forsaken fucking _Imp._

‘Can I peck her eyes out?’ ‘Can I eat her heart?’

The fact alone that it’s my lot in life to be attached to that creature is an injustice unto itself, and yet it disturbs me deeply that despite how vehemently I loathe him, am unsettled by him, and often wish he couldn’t talk at all; he has become a companion to me, and one that has proven his worth on multiple occasions: I know not where he came from, or who he truly serves, but I have my suspicions, and here I feel trapped in knowing that I would be less without him. I’m sure that this distaste brings nothing but delight to the Chained God: He knows that I know that Rekshon is a thorn in my side, and that I couldn’t bear to part with him. He knows that I understand this reality, and I can hear him snickering at this small, but effective machination of madness.

I’m no fool: My experience in the… wherever it was that I went when I fell was more proof than I needed that this being is not one to be trifled with, and yet the only way I managed to free myself from the chains that tried to bind me in that place was to kick out against the very embodiment of madness with madness of my own. Is that the key to triumph against my patron? Is that my key to freedom? Is that what will save this world from whatever it is that he and his followers are intending to unleash? Must I content myself with madness in the name of goodness being the only mark I’m destined to leave on this world?

I solved a mystery the other day. Sometimes when I would travel into Korden for supplies, I’d visit the bookshop in town. A soldier plagued with the lingering effects of trench foot had visited the hut once and told me of the love of reading he’d developed during his time bedridden after the war - I told him my love of myths, world faiths, and old legends - he told me of his love of tales of fiction: Ones that wove stories of intrigue and duplicity, where the reader would follow a hapless lawman as he sought to untangle the threads of a crime, a murder, or a heist, and would somehow always arrive at the right answer - one that was always unpredictable and delivered with great fanfare; gasps of shock and swooning ladies were commonplace, and  regardless of how hard the reader attempted to piece it all together and solve the puzzle in conjunction with the lawman, there was always a surprise.

Granted, the mystery we solved was nothing like that really - The Debin family was dysfunctional, beleaguered by grief, mistrust, and a feud with the other local noble family that was unnecessary and entirely seeded by the personal grudge held by Lady Eleanor Debin who was so bloody deep in her cups that she couldn’t see beyond the bottom of her next glass, let alone the impact her petty dislike might have on the future of her family.

We needed passage to Tamar, however, and so we made it our priority to suss out the whereabouts of the missing wine recipe which had brought the Debin’s their fortune.

I found that I deeply enjoyed the process of unraveling this mystery: Thinking, asking, choosing careful words, and using my understanding of people from years of not only medical work, but also turning cards: It’s true that I may not be the most open and inviting of people, and that a life lived in the woods has left me with a less than groomed social presence - but I am somehow very good at getting people to talk.

A few direct words to Lady Debin, and some clever theatrics by myself at dinner allowed me and Malforious to locate the missing recipe hidden in a secret drawer in the tobacco box of Roland Debin, the eldest son of the family: The recipe had not been stolen by the rivaling family at all, but was - as they say in those mystery tales - an inside job.

I have my reasons to suspect that Roland Debin may not have been responsible for the recipe’s placement within the tobacco box, and do believe that there is enough discord and unspoken greed and egoism at play within that family that a true doer of what is just and good might point a well aimed finger at his younger brother Evan. We were not hired to bring down a mighty hammer of justice, nor to mend this broken family, though: We were hired to return the recipe in exchange for horses that would get us closer to our next task, and get us one step closer to what has emerged as the true threat: The cultists of the Chained God, my bastard father, and what they are planning to unleash: The Debins will sort themselves out for better or worse. I can say one thing from personal experience on the matter: Betrayal by a member of one’s family really tends to bring out the worst in a person.

And I wonder what he thinks of all that - the Chained God. Does he watch me as I dismantle machinations and find answers, and at the very end do what must be done instead of what is right?

I could be a lawman, maybe. If I really wanted to be. But I decided I don’t: I would walk away from a thousand broken families like the Debins if it got me closer to destroying the one who wishes to play games with my fate. And fact alone is why I cannot pack my bags and head back to Frenholm to become a detective.

I certainly had fun trying though.

I’m not the only one among our group who’s died and come back. Both Nerisnys and Maella have fallen in battle and summarily resurrected. I’ve never asked them what they saw when they went elsewhere - assuming they did at all - but perhaps I should. I get the sense it was not quite the same as what I experienced: What I saw and felt in that place was enough to cause me to edge closer to that madness which I spoke of earlier for days to come. I am ashamed of what I was in those days that followed. Laughing at nothing, talking to nothing, making stupid carvings on potatoes like a child who had been dropped as an infant: I am beyond this. I aspire to so much more that that.

Yet that wretched book still calls to me, and though I ignore it, I dread the next time I open its nonsense pages.

Gods. Is it too much to ask to have a life that isn’t this? I am an outlier even among the company I travel with: Malforious be damned, what are the rest of their worries? Their struggles? Am I self-important in assuming that none of them wake in the night, gripped by the fear that their very existence alone might play a part in the undoing of life as the world knows it? Am I being dramatic? The hag did always tell me I had a flair for performance. I’m glad I killed her.

It’s interesting though - passing the time by wondering who I am, because even now I’m driving a carriage - the one promised to us by Evan Debin - and I like it. Reks is preening on the corner post, very aware of how majestic he looks as we traverse this prairie, the horses are well trained and know their job, lending me confidence in undertaking this role that has never been mine before now. There’s muffled laughing and shouting from within the carriage, and I assume that means Nerisnys has taken the hair growth tonic she purchased from Thryken before we left Frenholm. She almost didn’t get the opportunity to use it at all: The way I see it being covered in hair is better and easier to fix than being dead. She’ll laugh about it later, as she does with most things except Bethel.

I suppose this isn’t such a bad job to have. I could be a carriage driver: Being outside doesn’t bother me at all, I don’t have to talk at length with people, and I get to see some truly wondrous sights: These plains are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

But that’s not how this works, is it? Just like playing a detective, driving a carriage is only a trick: A facade that gets me from one place to another in pursuit of something bigger, darker, and likely with a far less favourable ending than any mystery tale I’ve read.

I will have to take off this hat eventually too, but in the meantime: Gods help anyone who gets in my way until the horses are brushed, fed, and happy.


End file.
